ten days on tinder -part 1 ‘the first 48 hours’…

A male friend of mine joined tinder, in the few weeks that I hadn’t seen him, he had been on several dates. And he seemed really happy. He said tinder was a simple way of meeting new people and it took away the scary elements of not knowing whether or not some one fancies you.

He said it wasn’t online dating.

I feel I should take a moment here to explain what Tinder is and how it works to those who haven’t seen the beast in action.

Tinder is an app for your phone. You upload a photo of yourself, you specify who you’re interested in, boys/ girls between set ages of your choice and then specify an area of a set mile radius from your location. Tinder then brings up a whole stack of people that mach your criteria within your area.

And this ladies and gentleman is where it is either genius or whole new levels of awfulness, because now you have your stack of photos, you swipe to the right to like some one, or swipe to the left to discard them. It’s a bit like top trumps for singles.

If you like some one and they like you back, then Tinder tells you ‘It’s a match!’ and you can then start chatting!

You never find out whether or not some one has clicked that they liked you, unless you like them and vice versa.

The first thing you have to accept about Tinder is that it is shallow. Super shallow. I mean, you can fill in an ‘About Me’ section (I didn’t) but chances are no one will read it.

Accept it, because in truth, the majority of times when you’re checking some one out in real life, you’re swiping to the left or the right based on their appearance anyway. Basically, Tinder is a night club in your pocket.

You walk in, you scan the room and you think to yourself, yes, nope, maybe in a drink or twos time.

And like in a night club, people are there checking one another out for a whole range of reasons. Quick hook up? A date or two? Some one to text but never ask out? Some one to fall in love with? Tinder may take away that unknown element of whether or not some one fancies you, but all the other elements, well, you take your chances.

Tinder isn’t online dating, Tinder is a condensed, 2D version of meeting some one in a bar. And it is the two dimensional aspect of it which has captured my curiosity.

When my friend showed me how Tinder worked, I was horrified, I swore against going on it. The next day I bumped into a cute guy on a train, who smiled at me, dropped a witty line and got off at the next stop, it made my day and I was adamant that that was how I wanted to meet some one. That it was all those other elements to that guy that had really caught my attention, yes he was physically attractive (swipe to the right) but it was the confidence to talk to me and drop a line, with out knowing which way I’d swiped before hand, that really did it for me.

That then posed me a question, could I fancy some one simply from the way they are on a phone screen?

So I decided to experiment with ten days on tinder, and boy have I learnt a whole range of things about guys, dating and myself.

Originally this was just going to be one blog post, but there is way too much so instead there will be a whole series. But first let me outline how the experiment would work.

Here are the rules I set myself in the beginning.

I wouldn’t fill in my ‘About Me’ section, nor would I read any guys ‘About Me’

I would only swipe to the right on guys that I believed I would be attracted to in real life (ie. yes having a six pack is hot, but photographing yourself in front of a mirror with your shirt off suggests you wouldn’t be my type)

I would chat to every match I made

Rules 1 and 2 were simple enough. But rule 3? I had 50 matches in less than 24 hours! There was no way I was going to keep up with that, so instead, I changed it to:

‘I would only chat to guys that chatted to me first, UNLESS, they were so attractive, I just couldn’t miss the opportunity’

A rule created on the basis that that is how I would approach the situation in real 3D life.

Over this series of blog posts I will go into what I learnt, about having your confidence boosted, how important posture can be, and how it is ok to have a perfectly lovely first date but never want to meet for a second. But for now, here is a list of the things I learnt within the first 48 hours of being on tinder…

It is easy to become shallow

You can tell within two lines of chatting to some one whether or not you’ll have anything in common

I will always judge some one for using ‘lol’

Having a cat, swearing or wearing a vest in your profile pic is an automatic NOPE and swipe to the left

I am pleasantly surprised by how many matches I have received

Particularly by how many men with pecs had matched with me

No one with pecs fancies me in real life

15 hours before some one messaged to ask if I fancied ‘a bang’… I replied nope… he replied: Devoed.

First date arranged within 20 hours

I can’t keep up with who I have said what to

After a while, you can almost predict the guys that will likely have matched with you

The guy who messages you saying ‘cute’ followed by one word answers will suddenly become very chatty when there is a hint that something could be suggestive

Avoid saying anything that could be interpreted as suggestive

There are A LOT of attractive younger men out there

Starting to rethink my position on becoming a cougar

Just like in real life it is the guy you’re not that fussed about that will keep messaging you

48 hours was a real eye opener, can’t wait to share with you the lessons from the 8 remaining days that followed x

5 thoughts on “ten days on tinder -part 1 ‘the first 48 hours’…”

I stopped using tinder a few weeks ago… too many douches for my liking lol. My coworker showed me cliqie.com and I’m a big fan of that over the others in terms of actually meeting people vs. just entertainment. It has a different approach that feels less sketchy cause you and your friends essentially act as “wingmen”. I like that it helps you find things to do too. Skout’s okay too, but still has it’s fair share of creepers

Oh my gosh, just in the middle of trying an actual dating site, and really prefer tinder to that. It feels cruel to be on a dating site where guys you would never talk to can instantly message you! There is something safe feeling about limiting the idea of rejection! Both in being rejected and rejecting some one! x

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Hello and welcome to Tea in your Twenties! Thanks for stopping by my little spot on the internet where I chat all things, life, love, tea and theatre. I hope you pop the kettle on and stay a while,
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